Vita Mojo is a software company revolutionising the hospitality industry. Founded in 2016 by Nick Popovici and Stefan Catoiu, Vita Mojo started life as the UK’s first cashless, cashier-less and digital-only restaurant.
The platform integrates everything restaurateurs need to succeed: award-winning digital ordering, POS, delivery and order management, kitchen operations, marketing and growth tools. Over 130 operators in 5 different countries use Vita Mojo to grow their business, streamline their operations and create remarkable customer experiences.
We had the chance to talk to the inspiring founder and CEO behind the company, Nick Popovici, who shared his journey of turning Vita Mojo into a globally recognised software company that helps hospitality brands innovate. He also talked about the company’s latest investment round and provided his view on future trends and how to leverage technology to tackle the challenges in the hospitality industry.
Nick, tell us, how did you turn an actual restaurant into a globally recognised software company that helps hospitality brands innovate?
I founded Vita Mojo in 2015 with my high school friend, Stefan Catoiu. As two passionate foodies, we saw an opportunity to harness the power of technology to help others improve the way they eat and drink. When we opened the first totally digital and cashless quick service restaurant in the UK, our mission was to build the technology that would sit at the heart of restaurants in the future.
Customers could personalise their order around their unique needs, while behind the scenes we focused on automating human repetitive tasks via intelligent algorithms and robotics.
Using our restaurants as testing environments, we gained first-hand experience as operators. This enabled us to improve our software and showcase prototypes with clients and customers to demonstrate the positive impact the software can have in hospitality businesses. We evolved Vita Mojo into a SaaS platform which brings together both customer ordering and kitchen operations. Today, we’re powering the digital transformation behind the best food and drink brands – helping them to deliver a remarkable experience for customers and simplify their operations. Now we are supporting over 130 brands across Europe.
You’ve recently raised a $30-million funding round – congratulations! How is this investment going to empower Vita Mojo’s future growth?
With the funding round complete, now is the time for action. Our investment will be put to work developing exciting new product functionality, upgrading our data and reporting features, and growing our Client Success, Product and Engineering teams.
We’re on track to double our headcount over the next year, which will enable us to continue to develop our products to better serve our existing clients and put more feet on the ground in Europe.
Vita Mojo leverages tech to help brands build the restaurants of the future. Could you explain to our readers what a ‘restaurant of the future’ looks like?
A ‘restaurant of the future’ harnesses technology to build an even better experience for customers and a more efficient, streamlined operational model.
Queuing and being rushed to make an ordering decision are two big pain-points for customers. Digital ordering through self-serve kiosks and a customer’s own device solves these problems by giving customers more flexibility to order in the way that suits them. We recently asked UK customers what they thought about kiosks and the results were overwhelmingly in favour of kiosks: over four-fifths (84%) of Generation Z and Millennials (82%) saying they choose to visit a restaurant with self-serve kiosks over and above those restaurants without.
This demand for digital ordering is driven by the need from customers for more personalised menu recommendations and nutritional transparency. Customers want to know about ingredients, calories and allergens as well as where their food has been sourced. Online menus allow restaurants to make all of this information easily accessible, without compromising the look and feel of the brand.
From an operational perspective, the savviest operators are using technology to streamline their operations and free up their staff for the most valuable tasks. We’re facing a huge labour shortage across the industry so more operators are making the leap to digital at the moment.
A ‘restaurant of the future’ is taking orders from multiple channels (delivery platforms, kiosks, Click & Collect) and the right tech helps a kitchen team stay one step ahead. Automating manual tasks, such as taking payments, will enable restaurants to invest more time on providing that great, personal customer service.
What are some of the most innovative use cases on how restaurants can capitalise on technology?
At Vita Mojo, we’re lucky to partner with some of the most innovative and forward-thinking restaurant brands.
LEON is a great example of a restaurant chain that has truly embraced technology. Before Vita Mojo, LEON had hundreds of thousands of customers transacting through their Point of Sale every week, but they had no way of connecting those transactions to known, contactable customers. Converting anonymous orders into real, known customers through digital transactions has meant they can target personalised offers at repeat customers, based on their menu preferences, resulting in increased spend and loyalty. By leveraging data, LEON is able to develop and design a better customer experience for their superfans and Club Members.
HOP Vietnamese is another great example. They have used digital to create a smart, customisable and efficient self-serve experience for customers. Building their entire restaurant experience around digital ordering, with signage and clear areas for order and collection guiding the customer throughout the process, has benefited the business. Since integrating the Vita Mojo tech suite, HOP has seen a 20% increase in average order value and a 25% reduction in kitchen labour.
Running and operating a restaurant business through technology brings its complexity. What are some of the most common challenges, and how to approach them?
One of the biggest challenges is that most restaurants use a variety of different technology providers and customer-facing platforms. This makes it difficult to achieve a seamless customer experience that reflects your brand.
For customers, Vita Mojo enables self-service ordering from kiosks and customers’ own devices, as well as integrating with third parties like Deliveroo and Just Eat to provide a more-efficient takeaway experience.
On the restaurant management side, Vita Mojo empowers operators to seamlessly integrate all ordering channels in one system. Mojo clients see an increase of 35% in average order value and an average reduction in labour costs of up to 40%.
Hospitality has been among the top affected industries by both the pandemic and the energy crisis. How do you see the industry tackling the challenges, and what’s the role of technology in supporting it?
The pandemic brought on a rush of technological innovation within the hospitality industry – it really was a case of do or die. The adoption of tech has been lifesaving for many hospitality businesses, with the introduction of cashless payments to online ordering and deliveries.
Operators and customers have seen the benefit of tech within restaurants first hand and are now open to change. Our research, Digital Transformation of Hospitality Report 2021, found 93% of operators plan to increase digital investment over the next three years
How do you see the hospitality industry evolving in the next five years?
We will continue to see more hospitality businesses move online – our research shows there is demand for this from customers and tech is now a ‘must have’ not simply a ‘nice to have’.
With the shift online over the last few years hospitality businesses have seen the benefits, one being access to customer data in terms of behaviours and buying habits. As a result, we will see more businesses reviewing their different tech providers in order to get systems to work together better so that they track everything and so that they can maximise the use of the data.
Data is king after all and technology can provide smart data which will enable operators to make better business decisions. It will not only provide access to customer data which can be used to aid order processes and gain an insight into customer preferences but it will support growth and help restaurants meet sustainable goals in terms of reducing waste and such.
What is your piece of advice for entrepreneurs and leadership teams looking to adopt digital transformation?
The decision to implement any digital solution or new technology should be strategic, not reactive. Before restaurants embark on their digital transformation journey, leaders should consider their big-picture business goals. Choose technology partnerships that will support them in their journey towards those goals over the long-term, rather than as a short-term fix, because the industry as we know it has changed.
